Benjy Ritholtz
speaker
39 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Benjy Ritholtz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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down the hallway yeah i would i think it goes back to a theme that we've actually seen all year long uh but it's been exacerbated i'd say of late and as josh hart has gotten less confident shooting the basketball as the season's gone on teams have been more emboldened to stick their centers on him and put their best wing defender or largest wing defender on carl anthony towns and i think what we're seeing is and we saw it down the stretch for sure
Cat is basically frozen out of the offense because if you screen with him, it's just an easy switch. Josh Hart's the one that screens over and over again, and it just becomes a lot of Josh Hart. And Josh Hart does a lot of great things. There's a lot of record scratching when he catches the ball because he's not willing to shoot.
And I just think the Knicks need to find a way to tilt the offense more towards the guy they just traded for to be their second best player, and that's Carl Anthony Towns, who barely touched it in the fourth quarter. I think that, to me, is the biggest takeaway.
It's a great question. And I'm actually not even sure there's a solution with this lineup unless Josh Hart decides to become a much better shooter in the offseason. And he's so far into his career, this has always been a thing with him. That's hard to imagine that being the fix. I think they could...
Do some things the way they initiate possessions to get cat touches, even if it's just like an elbow entry, because they'll go to this offense with the second unit when campaign plays with cat where it's like enter the ball to cat and run some split cut action. Cat's a really good passer out of there.
And maybe we can get him involved as opposed to just like a pure spacer, which is really what he was in that fourth quarter. I think that's one possibility just to get him involved a little bit.
But at the end of the day, if you want to free up Brunson, which is the priority, and he saw why, the guy's exceptionally good in these scenarios, you're going to want to screen with whoever the center's guarding, and that is Josh Hart. So I don't know if there's a great solution. I don't know if you guys have any opinion on it.
I know, but –
Yeah, I think that that's definitely part of it. And the thing with McHale, you mentioned he was he was basically absent less in the last night's game offensively, like did absolutely nothing for the most part. He has struggled above the break, especially like the corner three is there.
He tweaked his form, maybe raised the release a little bit so that he's having a little bit of trouble generating the power from above the break. And he just hasn't been consistent from above the break. And I don't think teams are really respecting him out there.
OG Ananobi has shot it really well of late, but generally, and as you know this well from watching him for years, much more of a threat in the corner than he is above the break.
so it's just not that quick release top of the top of the key shooter now it could be cat of course but we know sometimes cat just doesn't want to get the volume up he likes to drive the ball it's not what he wants to do that's why dante devincenzo was such a tremendous loss because talk about a quick trigger from as deep as you want like he would shoot it in an instance so that if you're if you're loading up on brunson the way the teams are it's that quick outlet to devincenzo if there's even a sliver of space because you load it up on brunson it's a shot
And they don't have that outlet now in the starting lineup. Now, Deuce McBride's the closest approximation to that guy. He didn't shoot well last night either, but generally a good shooter and a willing shooter, which is why those lineups with Deuce in place of either McHale or Josh have performed so much better offensively.
I think that's what the team's kind of grappling with is like this starting five, which was the plan, the idea, the vision. It's been disappointing offensively, and I think it's for a lot of the reasons you're pointing out, Dave, which is the ability to load up on Brunson and not get punished for it is really limiting their ability offensively.
I don't – Tibbs has not gone away from the starting lineup despite the evidence that maybe he should at times. And even if you started that starting lineup, which I understand, maybe even politically I understand because these are your five guys and you spent a lot of equity getting the two of them in this past offseason, so you're not going to bench anybody. Yeah.
I think it is a fair critique of Tibbs that he hasn't gone away from that lineup early enough in the first quarter or the third quarter and mixed in some of his better lineups over the data suggests there are just better lineups out there than that starting unit. I don't think he's going to break it up. I will say last night's game was the first time that we saw the Mitch plus cat lineup at all.
They had not done it the first three games Mitch has played. That was the first time we saw it. They actually played effectively together.
cat defensively we know is just more effective at the four this was obviously Minnesota's conclusion and we saw it tonight switchable you know he was actually pretty switchable out there Luca got him a couple times in overtime on tough shots but you cat did a good job on those possessions did a good job on Reeves a couple times even LeBron a couple times it just that just looks better when he can be a little bit more of a switchable four than a drop five certainly and Mitch allows you to have that drop five that anchor behind him and so I do think those lineups should be a part of the of the of the picture I
I just don't think Tibbs is going to start it. Maybe finish it depending on the matchup, but I don't think he's going to start it.
I hope. Deuce, I think, has to be. He has to be. And look, again, you know, it's... Tibbs isn't really the type of coach, having now experienced him for several years and knowing his history before, that the playoffs come and he's going to severely alter things. That's just not really his style.
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